DEV WORK AND STUFF | Faerie Dragon Familiar (Patreon)

The brief for this commission was simple. Design an Faerie dragon familiar, called Opal for a Dungeons & Dragons type table top game.

ABOUT FAERIE DRAGONS

So, with any design it is important to fill your visual library with as much reference material as possible. 

Faerie dragons were extremely small in comparison to their larger metallic or chromatic dragon cousins—about the size of a cat. 

Each had an iridescent coat of scales that reflected all colors of the rainbow, predominantly reflecting one particular color which changed with age. They have a long, prehensile tail and platinum-colored, butterfly-like wings.

Like true dragons, faerie dragons grew stronger with age, but they matured much more quickly and lived shorter lives. Because their predominant scale hue ran the colors of the rainbow over their lifetime, their color was a direct indicator of their age and power. 

The scales of a young hatchling were almost always red, and those of a fully mature dragon (over 50 years old) were violet. 

Like many dragons, they tended to be pranksters, but faerie dragons were especially mischievous. They were often referred to as the pranksters of the wild 

SOURCE:  https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Faerie_dragon 

COLOUR PALLET

The character's is name; Opal I which was a nice starting point to pull together some colour pallet ideas.

 Though these creatures are based in an established lore and have their own look. The commissioner was pretty open to what I did with the design as long as I followed the key features. 

Features; small, dragon/lizard like, cute with insect/butterfly wings.

SKETCHES BEFORE I USED REFERENCED

SKETCHES AFTER USING REFERENCE MATERIAL

NOTE: This commission was only to be rendered as a SKETCH.

COLOUR PALLET

As these dragons are based on butterflies I wanted to have a colourful pallet. Avoiding the whole rainbow spectrum I pulled colours from opal stones.

COLOURED

Placing the coloured version over the rough sketch is an easy way to add some details without spending a large amount of time rendering. I did lower the opacity of the sketch layer, with the blending mode set to multiply.

LINELESS ILLUSTRATION

I decided to go for a lineless look. As this was a sketch commission using the lasso tool and fill bucket is a very quick and easy way to draw in areas of a body.

OPAL TEXTURE

Creating a layer mask from the coloured layer, I applied an opal texture to the full image.

A nice and straight forward commission. It felt nice to do some homework on these little guys, though I did change one element regarding the wings. The wings are supposed to be white according to the lore and books around these guys. 

Overall I am happy with this. I did spend a little too much time on the rendering but I will put that down to my lack of drawing over the last few weeks.